Marco Polo
by angellwings
Summary: Inspired by a post on tumblr. "he yelled 'Marco' and she yelled back 'Polo' and he looks at me and says 'that came from the wine section didn't it."
1. Marco

Marco Polo

By angellwings

* * *

"Are we at the grocery store?" Lucy asked as Wyatt parked the car.

"Yes, we are," Wyatt said with a grin. "I've seen the fridge at your apartment. It's awful. It's all leftover take out."

"I like leftover take out," Lucy said as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Clearly," Wyatt said with a chuckle. "But maybe some real food would be good too."

"So, you're making me go grocery shopping?"

"Someone has to," Wyatt told her with a smirk. "You won't do it on your own."

"You know," Lucy told him with a quirked brow. "I did live pretty successfully for several years before I met you."

He laughed. "Yeah? Did you always live off of takeout?"

"No," she said in a hesitant and unconvincing tone.

"Right," Wyatt said with a chuckle.

"There's no point in buying groceries if I can't cook them," Lucy said with a roll of her eyes.

"You can learn how to cook. Everyone can," he told her.

"Nope. Not me. I've tried. It always goes badly," Lucy said with a light laugh. "Last time I tried I ended up burning everything and then I had to order carry out before Noah showed up for our date."

Awkward tension filled the car as it always did when Noah was brought up. Lucy was never sure why mentioning Noah made things awkward but Wyatt always tensed up.

"Yeah, well," Wyatt said with a gulp as he pointedly looked away from her. "That doesn't mean you can't learn. You just need the right teacher."

She bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Right, like you?"

He quirked a brow at her with a grin. "If you want."

She lifted a shoulder with a casual air she didn't really feel. "It might be fun."

"Okay, so we'll start tonight," he declared. "We'll buy the groceries and then make dinner."

Her eyes widened. "Tonight? So soon?"

"No time like the present, Professor," Wyatt told her with a smirk. "Can't give you time to chicken out."

"Chicken out?" She asked with a playful glare. "I would not _chicken out_."

"Uh huh," he said with an amused grin.

She rolled her eyes and opened the passenger side door. "Let's just get this over with."

They decided on a simple dish to make and gathered the ingredients as well as a few other things for Lucy to keep in her apartment like fresh vegetables and fruit to counter the junk food in her pantry. But at some point Lucy vanished. He turned down the bread aisle and she was gone. He panicked at first but then rationalized it was more likely she wandered off. The stock girl on the bread aisle must have noticed his unease, however, because she gave him a strange look.

He noticed he'd fisted his hands on the handle of the shopping cart and he felt how tight his jaw was. His teeth were grinding and he'd frozen in the middle of the aisle. Yes, he must have looked crazy to this teenager stocking bread and bagels.

"Sorry," Wyatt told the girl as he cleared his throat. He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for other than worrying he'd scared her. "I'm just missing someone." He glanced down the aisle and then behind him. He'd have to talk to Lucy about wandering off in a public place while Rittenhouse was out there.

He went to pull out his phone to text her and realized he'd left in the car. That was smart. What if Agent Christopher called? He hoped Lucy had hers, at least, so Christopher could reach one of them. But that didn't solve his problem of locating her. He smirked to himself as he remembered one particular summer evening with Rufus and Jiya at Lucy's apartment complex pool. They'd played a game then that he'd tried his hardest not to enjoy so much. But it was an almost innocent excuse to touch Lucy in more than just a fleeting small way and he didn't get many of those.

It might work. Worth a shot, at least.

"Marco!" He called out loudly. The stock girl jumped and he gave her an apologetic smile.

A moment later a familiar voice could be heard in a faint reply. "Polo!"

It sounded far away. Like other side of the store far away. He shook his head in amusement when he realized what that meant.

He looked at the stock girl with a smirk. "That came from the wine section, didn't it?"

She chuckled and nodded. "Sounded like it to me."

"Of course it did," Wyatt said with a playful roll of his eyes as he turned back down the aisle and headed toward the other end of the store.

He reached the wine section and, as he'd guessed, found Lucy debating between a bottle of red and a bottle of white.

"I should have known," Wyatt said with a laugh.

"I'm not learning how to cook without a little alcohol to make it less stressful," she told him.

"You could have said something first," he told her with a more somber expression. "I had a brief moment of panic when I realized you were gone. Scared some poor teenage employee I think."

Lucy winced and gave him an apologetic glance. "Oh god, I'm sorry. I didn't even think about _that_ ," she said. She understood that he'd been worried about Rittenhouse without him having to explain it. "I did try to text you when I realized I'd left without warning."

"That one's my fault," he admitted as he scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Left my phone in the cupholder in the car."

She grinned slightly at that. "A lot of good that does us."

He wanted to grin back at her but the panic he'd felt a few aisles back was still lingering and he had to get something off of his chest. "Seriously, though, Lucy. I know you've always been very independent and taken care of everyone else but...you have to let me look out for you. I need to know you're okay. I'm not saying I have to be a part of everything you do but...I just need to know you're safe. Okay?"

She watched him carefully as she placed the bottle of red back on the shelf and then joined him by the cart. Her eyes never left his as she placed the bottle of white wine inside the cart and then came to stand directly in front of him. "I am safe, Wyatt. I'm fine."

"This time," he said with a sigh.

She reached out and pried his hands off the cart. He didn't realize his hands were still fisted around it until she'd struggled to pull him away from it. She held both his hands in hers and softly ran her thumbs across his knuckles until his hands relaxed in hers.

"You're right," she said quietly. "I am used to taking care of other people. My mother when she was sick, Amy…" she paused and took a deep breath. "Amy tried to look after me in her own way and my mother spent more time pushing me than taking care of me. But I've never had someone worry over me like you seem to. I forget that I have that now. I'm sorry. I'll try to remember. I promise."

"Thank you," he said as he released a relieved breath. Why exactly was he always so intensely concerned about Lucy? And when exactly did that first start? He could feel all the tension that had coiled in him since he first noticed her missing melting away at her words. It amazed him that he was so easily soothed.

She released his hands and then took his place in front of the cart. "So, do we need anything else, chef?" she asked teasingly. "You know, before you make me try to cook this stuff? It's your fault if we burn down my apartment. I hope you know that."

And just like that they were moving on. He smirked as he fell into step beside of her. He expected nothing less. But maybe, once they got back to her place and started cooking, they could finally get back around to all of that "possibilities" talk they'd started. The only way to figure out why and how Lucy affected him the way she did was to give whatever they had a real chance. They were long overdue.


	2. Polo

So, cooking was okay. Lucy actually wasn't doing too badly. Of course, she had a feeling she was cooking the easiest meal you could cook. Sauteed chicken breast, sauteed squash and zucchini, and baked potato. Wyatt was great teacher, though merciless with his teasing. It was all in good fun and she knew it. Honestly, she wouldn't have enjoyed learning so much if he hadn't teased her. After she'd nearly sliced her finger instead of the squash Wyatt had taken the knife from her, telling her it was for his safety as much as her own. She'd laughed and then followed his verbal instructions on how to prepare the potatoes for the oven.

"I feel like I missed some part of adulthood where everyone else learned how to do this," Lucy said with a laugh. "I mean I went to college and grad school. I lived in crappy apartments and dorms. Isn't that when people usually learn to do this? How did I avoid that?"

"Your roommates probably preferred cooking for you to calling the fire department, I'm guessing. It was self preservation," Wyatt said with a smirk as he dumped the sliced squash in the skillet with the olive oil.

She gave him a mock offended look as she rubbed the potatoes in olive oil and salt and then poked them with a fork in various places. "Well, at least potatoes are easy. I don't think I can mess this up."

"As far as we know," Wyatt added teasingly.

"You're so annoying," Lucy said with a roll of her eyes.

"Back at ya," Wyatt replied with a laugh. "We'll put the potatoes in the oven and let the chicken thaw a little. The potatoes will need a headstart."

"Oh good," Lucy said as she headed for one of her cabinets. "Finally time for wine."

He laughed and shook his head. "I'm surprised you waited this long."

"I thought wine and knives probably wouldn't mix," Lucy told him with a grin as she pulled a half finished bottle of wine from the fridge and poured herself a glass. "I have beer if you want one."

He shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, sure."

She put the wine back and handed him a longneck bottle and he couldn't help but notice it was his favorite brand. Lucy didn't really drink beer so he could only guess as to why she started keeping it stocked in her kitchen. His best guess left him feeling a bit giddy. He was never giddy unless it involved Lucy. Damn he was a goner.

Lucy pulled herself up onto the counter and sat on the empty counter space next to the stove and then slowly sipped her white wine. "So, what made you want to do this all of a sudden?"

He gave her crooked grin and leaned against the counter next to her. "I knew after I dropped you off you were going to reheat some two day old take out and that just made me sad."

She laughed and rolled her eyes at him. "No, seriously, Wyatt. Why?"

He lifted one shoulder as he took a sip of his beer. He swallowed and then met her eyes. "I wasn't quite ready for the day to end yet, I guess, and, you know, we've been so busy lately that I…" his sentence trailed off and he hesitated to continue but then Lucy gave him a small soft smile and, for some reason, he felt encouraged. "I wanted some one on one time with you before we're off in that damn eyeball again."

She nodded and continued to smile at him sweetly. "Well, I'm glad you abducted me and forced me to go grocery shopping-"

"Hey, you agreed to let me give you a ride home, you said nothing about not making any stops," he told her with a smirk.

"I'll remember to be more specific next time then," Lucy said with a chuckle. "But really, thank you, I wanted some one on one time with you too."

"Yeah?" He asked with raised eyebrows and a bright grin.

She nodded and bit back a grin of her own. "Yeah. I know we spend nearly every day chasing Emma through time but we haven't had any time to be just Lucy and Wyatt lately and...I miss that. I miss _you_."

"Well, we're here now, professor," he said with a smirk.

"So we are, soldier," she said as her eyes and smile lingered on his.

He wasn't sure what made him decide to do it, but his hand landed on the curve of her neck and then he was using that hand to bring her closer. Before he could second guess himself he pressed his lips to hers. He kept the kiss light at first and let her dictate the terms. For a tortuously slow second he thought he'd made a mistake because she didn't seem to be responding but when that second ended there was an explosion of a response.

Her arms went around his neck and pulled him even closer, one hand dug into his hair and the other rested under the collar of his t-shirt, and she gently nipped at his bottom lip. He groaned and deepened the kiss as his arms encircled her waist. He adjusted his position until he was standing between her legs and it did wonders for the angle of the kiss. It was deeper and more comfortable and they both finally sunk into it. His hands that had been resting on her back seemed to move under the bottom hem of her shirt of their own accord. He traced lazy circles on the small of her back with his thumb. Lucy whimpered into his mouth and he felt a shiver all over him.

This was more than he could have hoped for when he parked outside that grocery store. He really just thought he'd get to spend time alone with her. He never once thought they'd be doing _this_. He'd hoped, dreamed, but never planned. They pulled back as he felt Lucy wrap her legs around his waist.

He rested his forehead against hers and smiled warmly. "Been wanting to do that for a very long time now."

She chuckled and brought one of her hands to caress the side of his face. "Me too."

He leaned into her hand and closed his eyes. He wanted to really savor the moment. Who knew when Emma would decide to jump and ruin it.

"So," Lucy asked as he opened his eyes and focused on her again. "Is this our first date or what?"

"Do you want it to be?" He asked as he brought one hand from her back to casually skim across the outside of her thigh.

She took in a sharp breath and blushed slightly. "Yes."

"Then it's a date," Wyatt said with a smirk. He loved knowing what kind of effect he had on her.

"Well, good," she said as one of her hand that had caressed his face skimmed through his hair and across his scalp. "Then I know what we can do while we let the potatoes bake for a bit."

"Oh?" He asked as he feigned cluelessness. She'd leaned forward again and smirked at him.

"Uh huh," she said as her eyes traveled from his lips to meet his gaze.

"And what would that be?" He asked with a knowing grin.

"You know, if I wasn't already planning on it, I'd kiss you right now just to wipe that smug grin off of your face," Lucy said with a scoff and a roll of her eyes. But her tone and her gaze was still light and teasing and warm.

"Well, no one's stopping you, babydoll," he said with a chuckle. Or a partial chuckle because before he could finish Lucy's lips returned to his and that kiss was even better than the previous one.

Yeah, stopping at that grocery store had definitely been one of his better ideas.


End file.
